Jack
It was cold. Bitter Cold. The kind of cold where kids are frozen in their cribs. I'll do anything--and I do mean anything--to keep that from happening again. -- Jack when asked about The Eternal Winter The First World Born to a Fae King and Queen in The First World, Jack was to be The First Son in a long line of Fae children born to rule the world of the Fae when the King and Queen passed on. Born a beautiful baby boy with fair skin, sea blue eyes and satyr hooves, the Prince of the Fae would grow to be a kind and gentle soul, close to his sister Senya and closer still to his brother Bo. Jack was a precocious child, fashioning The Void Knife early in his adolescence. Before long, the Fae of Faedweyr would decide they wished to join the Material Plane, settling on the world that held the most mystery and power: T'lall. Jack was eager to see new lands and worlds, he would be all too excited to help with the Fae King and Queen transition their kingdom to the world of T'lall. The Fae and the Thalassian Empire Jack would quickly see first hand that not all on T'lall would be as welcoming as the elves of Quintarra. The elves would be eager to learn the secrets of the Fae's mastery of magic and the arcane and all too willing to share with the Fae their knowledge of smithing the metals that T'lall was rich with. However, the Thalassian Empire made it very clear that the Fae were not welcome upon the Eldar Lands and made it obvious they would not ally themselves with outsiders outside of their world. This was Jack's first and hardest lesson; T'lall would never truly be his home. He was unwelcome in a land totally foreign to him. He would forever harbor a small level of resentment towards the Thalassian Empire and its future descendants. To him, perhaps if the Thalassian Empire had accepted them perhaps they would not been what they are today. The Future of the Fae Despite this, Jack would not allow the disrespect of the Thalassian Empire to dissuade him from his duties. He continued to study and learn what he could of T'lall and what it meant to be a good ruler. However, there would be one thing that would pull his attention away. Unbeknownst to everyone, say his brother and sister, he would meet a Fae women, a commoner woman upon the streets of Faedweyr, and Jack would waste no time in courting her. Meeting in darkened alleys, outside of the walls of Faedweyr, and anywhere they could find to be alone, they would spend their waking moments together. Bo, the younger brother, would often make up lies as to why his brother had no attended lessons, and Senya would often bake them goodies to share on their romps through Silvershard Woods. It would not be long before Jack would marry her, much to the chagrin of his mother and father. He would eventually become a father to five Fae children, the future of Faedweyr. This would be Jack's next lesson; that no matter how high you rise, no matter if you are great or small, someone out there would love you for who you are. The Witches of the West Not long after Faedweyr was settled, a visitor would come to T'lall that would be a dangerous foe of all people of T'lall for millennia to come. Calling herself by many names--The Cronemother, Queen of the Witches, The Raven Queen--her true name would be revealed when she arrived at the gates of Faedweyr: Baba Yaga. Baba Yaga would deliver a simple demand: Join her or die. The King would, of course, decline, but they would be he downfall. Jack would watch as his father was flayed alive right there in the Court of the Trees by The Cronemother. What would ensue would be a weeks long massacre of the Fae people, their allies, the elves, no where in sight. Jack would sequester himself and his mother, children, and wife in the throne room and butcher any Witch that dared cross the threshold. It would all be for naught as the Lady Valithria Tempestrider and her sisters Lady Julianna Tempestrider and Lady Hilda Tempestrider would storm the throne room from the gardens and slay his mother while Jack dealt with summoned monsters at the doors. Jack wasted no time slaughtering Julianna and Hilda with ease, but Valithria would pose more cunning as she shackled his wife and children. Baba Yaga would enter the throne room and demand from Jack she join him in exchange for the lives of his wife and children. At first, Jack would refuse, vowing to destroy Baba Yaga and her witch sisters. However, Baba Yaga would prove far the more vile and would flay the skin from Jack's body, literally beating him black and blue, turning him into the twisted caricature of what he once was. She transformed him into The Terror and he would be the first to lead her armies to the destruction of T'lall. The Butcher of Quintarra Jack would do anything to protect the lives of his children and wife and that included storming Quintarra with legions of witches and twisted, brutalized Fae loyal to The Cronemother. In a single night, Quintarra, largely regarded as the greatest nation T'lall had ever seen was reduced to ruin, the Sun King Antiloni killed in his own bathhouse. Claiming Quintarra in the name of The Cronemother, Jack would use The Void Knife to get into The Vault of the Sun and steal the artifacts of the Gods, The Apocrypha. However, he hid them, hoping to use them as a bargaining chip for the lives of his family It would be of no use as Baba Yaga knew everything her new son did that was either for or against her. For that, he would be punished. The Companions No More It was about now that Baba Yaga learned of The Companions, champions chosen by the Gods themselves to save T'lall and stop The Eternal Winter, a magical, everlasting winter Baba Yaga hoped to cover T'lall in for all time. Using The Apocrypha, she hoped to wish for the winter to blanket T'lall and bend all of its people to her will. As such, she summoned Jack to the Court of the Trees, knowing full well he had them hidden away. Jack would be forced to choose; his uncle, the only one left that he trusted in all the world or his wife and children. He would choose Muridae, causing his wings to be torn from his back by Baba Yaga. The Cronemother would, yet again, prove to be more vile than anyone could imagine and brutally murdered Jack's wife and children before him. With nothing left to live for and his only family left outside of Faedweyr to die, he gave up The Apocrypha to Baba Yaga. The Eternal Winter The Witch Queen would waste no time in wishing for the Winter to blanket T'lall. Jack would fall to his knees on the ramparts of the city as a heavy snowfall then a blizzard took hold of the lands of his home. She would have one more task for him, though. He would go to where The Companions prepared to attack Faedweyr and ambush them, dealing with them once and for all. He agreed and met The Companions in the field of battle. They would be no match for his might as The Terror and easily slew three of the five companions. He would only know where they were because one of The Companions was a traitor, promised clemency for assisting the Fae. Satisfied, he left the final two, Rue Delacourt and Yora to die in the cold. They would push on though, making it to Faedweyr, just barely clinging to life. Jack watched them enter the city but did not stop them. Instead, he followed them and watched the final two Companions do battle with Baba Yaga. Sensing that the battle would be over before it began, Jack sought to end it quickly, teleporting behind Rune and severing his spine with The Void Knife. Little did he know, though, Rune's powerful magical tattoos would activate, immediately banishing the wish made by The Apocrypha and banished Baba Yaga to the astral plane. They had won. Jack watched as Yora held the dying Rune in her arms. Jack would approach Yora and scratch her shoulder with a single talon, proclaiming that it didn't matter what he did. He had already won. With that, he fled the abandoned Faedweyr and traveled to the Westerlands where he opted to live in exile. Cronemother's Return It would be several thousand years before Baba Yaga could regain the strength she needed to breach the veil into T'lall again. He heard the summons in Autumn of 2019 AEW. This time, he ignored them, as he had gathered around him a sizable following of Fae that had been loyal to his family. He would not return to Faedweyr and simply opted for eternal exile. However, he would learn that there was one who could possibly end Baba Yaga's plans once and for all. One, Pimpernell Goodleaf, a distant relative and heir to the throne of Faedweyr was travelling in the Westerlands at the same time that The Companions would be travelling across the Westerlands. He thought it would be a good idea to put their paths on a collision course. Jack, disguised as a travelling merchant, planted the idea of Pimpernell to set up camp where he knew The Companions would cross his path. From there, he would set them against The Cold Rider, his former brother, setting it up so that The Companions would not only exact their revenge on The Cold Rider for earlier slights, but also rob Baba Yaga of her new Wrath. Easily defeating him, Jack would trade the Shadowskin Boots to Aeron in exchange for information regarding The Apocrypha. Noticing Yora had rejoined The Companions after millennia of stasis, Jack opted to follow The Companions to Shambala at the far end of the Easterlands in hopes of seeing if they could truly defeat Baba Yaga this time.